The Stand (Original Edition) (76 page)

Silence from the floor.

“Very well,” Stu said. “Discussion of the motion?”

“I don’t think we need any, Stu,” Dick Ellis said. “It’s a grand idea. Let’s vote!”

Applause greeted this, and Stu needed no further urging. Charlie Impening was waving his hand to be recognized, but Stu ignored him —a good case of selective perception, Glen Bateman would have said—and called the question.

“Those in favor of Harold Lauder’s motion please signify by saying aye.”

"AYE!!”
They bellowed, sending the barnswallows into another frenzy.

“Opposed?”

But no one was, not even Charlie Impening—at least, vocally. There was not a nay in the chamber. So Stu pushed on to the next item of business, feeling slightly dazed, as if someone—namely, Harold Lauder—had crept up behind him and clopped him one on the head with a large sledgehammer made out of Silly Putty.

“Let’s get off and push them awhile, want to?” Fran asked. She sounded tired.

“Sure.” He got off his bike and walked along beside her. “You okay, Fran? The baby bothering?”

“No, I’m just tired. It’s quarter of one in the morning, or hadn’t you noticed?”

‘‘Yeah, it’s late,” Stu agreed, and they pushed their bikes side by side in companionable silence. The meeting had gone on until an hour ago, most of the discussion centering on the search-party for Mother Abagail. The other items had all passed with a minimum of discussion, although Judge Farris had provided a fascinating piece of information that explained why there were so relatively few bodies in Boulder. According to the last four issues of the
Camera,
Boulder’s daily newspaper, a wild rumor had swept the community, a rumor that the superflu had originated in the Boulder Air Testing facility on Broadway. Spokesmen for the center—the few that were still on their feet—protested that it was utter nonsense, and anyone who doubted it was free to tour the facility, where they would find nothing more dangerous than air pollution indicators and wind-vectoring devices. In spite of this, the rumor persisted, probably fed by the hysterical temper of those terrible days in late June. The Air Testing Center had been either bombed or burned, and much of Boulder’s population had fled.

Both the Burial Committee and the Power Committee had been passed with an amendment from Harold Lauder—who had seemed almost awesomely prepared for the meeting—to the effect that each committee be increased by two for each increase of one hundred in the total Free Zone population.

The discussion of Mother Abagail’s disappearance had covered far-reaching and sometimes comical ground. One man stated ominously that he had seen lights in the sky the night before Mother Abagail’s disappearance and that the Prophet Isaiah had confirmed the existence of flying saucers ... so they’d better put that in their collective pipe and smoke it, hadn’t they? Judge Farris rose in turn to point out that the previous gentleman had mistaken Isaiah for Ezekiel, that the exact reference was not to flying saucers but to “a wheel within a wheel,” and that the Judge himself was of the opinion that the only flying saucers yet proven were those that sometimes flew during marital spats.

Person after person rose to protest the charge that Mother Abagail had laid upon herself, that of pride. They spoke of her courtesy and her ability to put a person at ease with just a word or a sentence. Ralph Brentner, who looked awed by the size of the crowd and was nearly tongue-tied—but determined to speak his piece—rose and spoke in that vein for nearly five minutes, adding at the end that he had not known a finer woman since his mother had died. When he sat down, he seemed very near tears. When taken together, the discussion reminded Stu uncomfortably of what you hear about the dead when there’s a “viewing” at the mortuary the night before the dear departed is lowered into the ground. It told him that in their hearts, they had already come halfway to giving her up. If she did return now, Abby Freemantle would find herself welcomed, still sought after, still listened to . . . but she would also find, Stu thought, that her position was subtly changed. If a showdown between her and the Free Zone Committee came, it was no longer a foregone conclusion that she would win, veto power or not. She had gone away and the community had continued to exist. The community would not forget that, as they had already half-forgotten the power of the dreams that had brought them together.

After the meeting, more than two dozen people had sat for a while on the lawn behind Chautauqua Hall; the rain had stopped, the clouds were tattering, and the evening was pleasantly cool. Stu and Frannie had sat with Larry, Lucy, Leo, and Harold.

“You dam near knocked us out of the ballpark this evening,” Larry told Harold. He nudged Frannie with an elbow. “I told you he was acehigh, didn’t I?”

Harold had merely smiled and shrugged. “A couple of ideas, that’s all. You seven have started things moving again. You should at least have the privilege of seeing it through to the end of the beginning.” Now, fifteen minutes after the two of them had left that impromptu gathering, Stu repeated: “You sure you’re feeling okay?” “Yes. My legs are a little tired, that’s all.”

“You want to take it easy.”

She smiled wanly and nodded.

“Something giving you the blues, honey?”

She shook her head no, but he thought he saw tears in her eyes. “What is it? Tell me.”

“It’s over, and I finally realized it, that’s all. Less than six hundred people singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ It just kind of hit me all at once. The Ferris wheel isn’t going around and around at Coney Island tonight. No one’s having a nightcap at the Space Needle in Seattle. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“In my diary I had a little section called Things to Remember. So the baby would know ... oh, all the things he never will. And it gives me the blues, thinking of that. I should have called it Things That Are Gone.” She did sob a little, stopping her bike so she could put the back of her hand to her mouth and try to keep it in.

“It got everybody the same way,” Stu said, putting an arm around her. “Lot of people are going to cry themselves to sleep tonight.”

“I don’t see how you can grieve for a whole country,” she said, crying harder, “but I guess you can. These . . . these little things keep shooting through my mind. Car salesmen. Frank Sinatra. Old

Orchard Beach in July, all crowded with people, most of them from Quebec. The times ... oh God, I sound like a fuh-fuh-frigging Rod Muh-McKuen poem!”

He held her, patting her back, remembering one time when his Aunt Betty had gotten a crying fit over some bread that didn’t rise, she was big with his little cousin Laddie then, seven months or so, and Stu could remember her wiping her eyes with the comer of a dishtowel and telling him to never mind, any pregnant woman was just two doors down from the mental ward because the juices their glands put out were always scrambled up into a stew.

After a while Frannie said, “Okay. Okay. Better. Let’s go.” “Frannie, I love you,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I know. And that makes it better most of the time.”

“Harold was sure something tonight, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was.”

He smiled at her worried tone. “Bothered you a little, didn’t it?” “Yes, but I won’t say so. You’re in Harold’s comer now.”

“Now, that’s not fair, Fran. It bothered me, too. There we had those two advance meetings . . . hashed everything over to a fare-thee-well ... at least we thought so . . . and along comes Harold. He takes a whack here and a whack there and says, ‘Ain’t that what you really meant?’ And we say, ‘Yeah, thanks. Harold. It was.’ ” Stu shook his head. “Putting everybody up for blanket election, how come we never thought of that, Fran? That was
sharp.
And we never even
discussed
it.”

“Well, none of us knew for sure what kind of mood they’d be in. I thought—especially after Mother Abagail walked off—that they’d be glum, maybe even mean. With that Impening talking around like some kind of deathcrow—”

“I wonder if he should be shut up somehow,” Stu said thoughtfully.

“But it wasn’t like that. They were so . . .
exuberant
just to be together. Did you feel that?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“It was like a tent revival, almost. I don’t think it was anything Harold had planned. He just seized the moment.”

“I just don’t know how to feel about him,” Stu said. “That night after we hunted for Mother Abagail, I felt real bad for him. When Ralph and Glen turned up, he looked downright horrible, like he was going to faint, or something. But when we were talking out on the

lawn just now and everybody was congratulating him, he seemed puffed up like a toad. Like he was smiling on the outside and on the inside he was saying, there, you see what your committee’s worth, you stupid bunch of fools. He—”

Fran stopped her bike and looked down. “Speaking of Harold, do you see anything funny about my feet, Stuart?”

Stu looked at them judiciously. “Nope. Just that you’re wearing those funny-looking Earth Shoes from up the street. And they’re almighty big o course.”

She slapped at him. “Earth Shoes are very good for your feet. All the best magazines said so. And I happen to be a size seven, for your information. That’s practically petite.”

“So what have your feet got to do with anything? It’s late, honey.” He began to push his bike again and she fell in beside him.

“Nothing, I guess. It’s just that Harold kept looking at my feet. After the meeting when we were sitting out on the grass and talking things over.” She shook her head, frowning a little. “Now why would Harold Lauder be interested in my feet?” she asked.

When Larry and Lucy got home they were by themselves, walking hand in hand. Leo had gone into the house where he stayed with “Nadine-mom” some time before.

Now, as they walked toward the door, Lucy said: "It was quite a meeting. I never thought—" Her words caught in her throat as a dark form unfolded itself from the shadows of their porch. Larry felt hot fear leap up in his throat. It's him, he thought wildly. He's come to get me . . . I'm going to see his face.

But then he wondered how he could have thought that, because it was Nadine Cross, that was all. She was wearing a dress of some soft bluish-gray material, and her hail was loose, flowing over her shoulders and down her back, dark hair shot with skeins of purest white.

She sort of makes Lucy look like a used car on a scalper’s lot,
he thought before he could help himself, and then hated himself for thinking it. That was the old Larry talking ... old Larry? You might as well say old Adam.

“Nadine,” Lucy was saying shakily, with one hand pressed to her chest. “You gave me the fright of my life. 1 thought. . . well, I don’t know what I thought.”

She took no notice of Lucy. “Can I talk to you?” she asked Larry. “What? Now?” He looked sideways at Lucy, or thought he did . . . later he was never able to remember what Lucy had looked like in that moment. It was as if she had been eclipsed, but by a dark star rather than by a bright one.

“Now. It has to be now.”

“In the morning would—”

“It has to be now, Larry. Or never.”

He looked at Lucy again and this time he did see her, saw the resignation on her face as she looked from Larry to Nadine and back again. He saw the hurt.

“I’ll be right in, Lucy.”

“No you won’t,” she said dully. Tears had begun to sparkle in her eyes. “Oh no, I doubt it.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes, ten years,” Lucy said. “She’s come to get you. Did you bring your dog collar and your muzzle, Nadine?”

For Nadine, Lucy Swann did not exist. Her eyes were fixed only on Larry, those dark, wide eyes. For Larry, they would always be the strangest, most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, the eyes that come back to you, calm and deep, when you’re hurt or in bad trouble or maybe just about out of your mind with grief.

“I’ll be in, Lucy,” he said automatically.

“She—”

“Go on.”

“Yes, I guess I will. She’s come. I’m dismissed.”

She ran up the steps, stumbling on the top one, regaining her balance, pulling the door open, closing it behind her with a slam, cutting off the sound of her sobs even as they started.

Nadine and Larry looked at each other for a long time as if entranced. This is how it happens, he thought. When you catch someone’s eyes across a room and never forget them, or see someone at the far end of a crowded subway platform that could have been your double, or hear a laugh on the street that could have been the laugh of the first girl you ever made love to—

But something in his mouth tasted so bitter.

“Let’s walk down to the corner and back,” Nadine said in a low voice. “Would you do that much?”

“I better go in to her. You picked one hell of a bad time to come here.”

“Please? Just down to the corner and back? If you want, I’ll get down on my knees and beg. If that’s what you want. Here. See?”

And to his horror she did get down on her knees, pulling her skirt up a little so she could do it, showing him that her legs were bare of stockings, making him curiously certain that everything else was bare as well. Why should he think that? He didn’t know. Her eyes were on him, making his head spin, and there was a sickening feeling of power involved here someplace, involved with having her on her knees before him, her mouth on a level with—

“Get up!” he said roughly. He took her hands and yanked her to her feet, trying not to see the way the skirt rode up even more before falling back into place, her thighs were the color of cream—

“Come on,” he said, almost totally unnerved.

They walked west, in the direction of the mountains, which were a negative presence far ahead, triangular patches of darkness blotting out the stars that had come out after the rain. Walking toward those mountains at night always made him feel queerly uneasy but somehow adventurous, and now, with Nadine by his side, her hand resting lightly in the crook of his elbow, those feelings seemed heightened. A soft breeze meandered down the street, blowing papers before it. They passed King Sooper’s, a few shopping carts standing in the big parking lot like dead sentinels, making him think of the Lincoln Tunnel.